Ask the Author: Phillip T. Stephens
Answered Questions (8)
Phillip T. Stephens
Tough question. One of the greatest works of comedy I've encountered is the Urantia Book, and it would be fun to visit the Hovana administrative worlds which remind me of my childhood in the fifties. But I'd probably get caught in an eternal line at one of the licensing offices, so I'll pass. I loved Narnia when I was a kid, but I found better Turkish Delight here and I'm allergic to big cat fur. Hobbits annoy me. I'd love to chase the bulls and drink Pernod with Jake Barnes and Brett, but toilet facilities were crap in Europe during the time frame of the book. I'd like to be a Canopan visiting Shikasta, but I'd probably forget my true calling and become a couch potato.
So the answer is: Solaris.
Not on the space station, but on the planet, watching the internal workings of my mind reify and have long discussions about the phenomenology of a world mind as opposed to my poor limited one.
As long as my first wife doesn't show up. I like well enough as a person, but sooner or later we'd start talking about our son, get into a huge argument and move to opposite ends of the planet where we would populate it with specters from our incompatible pasts.
Yep, that's it. Solaris. Even if it's only the movie version. The Russian version directed by Tarkovsky. Soderberg version's okay, but shallow in comparison.
Solaris
So the answer is: Solaris.
Not on the space station, but on the planet, watching the internal workings of my mind reify and have long discussions about the phenomenology of a world mind as opposed to my poor limited one.
As long as my first wife doesn't show up. I like well enough as a person, but sooner or later we'd start talking about our son, get into a huge argument and move to opposite ends of the planet where we would populate it with specters from our incompatible pasts.
Yep, that's it. Solaris. Even if it's only the movie version. The Russian version directed by Tarkovsky. Soderberg version's okay, but shallow in comparison.
Solaris
Phillip T. Stephens
My favorite fictional couple is the foursome from Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins. Dr. Thomas more and the none too happy to meet each other Ellen, Moira and Lola. Alas, he ends up with Ellen, a fierce Presbyterian woman determined to whip him into shape, rather than the passionate cellist Lola.
Still, chaining his hero to the rock of Sysiphellen, is more in keeping with Percy's existentialist undercurrents.
Interestingly, by the time he writes The Second Coming (the sequel to The Last Coming), Percy's MC Will Barrett—an aging lawyer and widower—is able to abandon the need for responsibility and take up with the off-center (and young) Allie.
Still, chaining his hero to the rock of Sysiphellen, is more in keeping with Percy's existentialist undercurrents.
Interestingly, by the time he writes The Second Coming (the sequel to The Last Coming), Percy's MC Will Barrett—an aging lawyer and widower—is able to abandon the need for responsibility and take up with the off-center (and young) Allie.
Phillip T. Stephens
Most of the time it's a single image or a conversation. In this case it was actually the title itself. I made a joke about gas stations in Texas in the seventies and eighties being one stop shopping for all your essential needs, "cigerettes, guns and beer." The book evolved from that joke, with the original title being Cigerets, Guns & Beer: One Stop Shopping.
Phillip T. Stephens
At sixty, being retired with both of us home all the time and a house full of rescue cats, it gets harder. When I was younger, I would simply find two to three hours at a coffee shop and sit down and write.
Phillip T. Stephens
Working on final revisions to Seeing Jesus, the only novel I ever wrote at the suggestion of an agent. Based on a conversation about metaphors and the mind, she suggested I write a novel along the lines of Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World.
I started along one line based on an old friend, the late poet Albert Huffstickler, but somehow it evolved into the story of Sara Love an alienated eighth grader whose parents moved her to a small Texas town where she doesn't fit in.
Her only friend is an old man named Mr. Fisher who uses parables to help her learn to adjust to becoming a teenager. The only problem is, nobody believes Mr. Fisher is real.
I started along one line based on an old friend, the late poet Albert Huffstickler, but somehow it evolved into the story of Sara Love an alienated eighth grader whose parents moved her to a small Texas town where she doesn't fit in.
Her only friend is an old man named Mr. Fisher who uses parables to help her learn to adjust to becoming a teenager. The only problem is, nobody believes Mr. Fisher is real.
Phillip T. Stephens
Learn the formula of the genre you want to write. But read everything—great writers as well as history and science and politics and poetry. Educate yourself.
Be aware that the chances of making a real living at writing are slim, so make sure you love it first. I've been writing for forty years because I love it. I'm only trying to sell now to create a college fund for my granddaughters.
Be aware that the chances of making a real living at writing are slim, so make sure you love it first. I've been writing for forty years because I love it. I'm only trying to sell now to create a college fund for my granddaughters.
Phillip T. Stephens
Truthfully, the best thing about writing is writing. When I write something good, and then go back and winnow out the really good parts, and a year later, after tossing a lot of mediocre stuff I find something I still think is good, I'm genuinely happy. But I'm an INTP, so I'm looking for something different from the process than most people.
Phillip T. Stephens
You don't. You write. You just start writing. The key is not to wait for the perfect sentence or paragraph. Just write and sooner or later you will start writing something you actually can use. You can always go back and cut the crap out later. The key to good writing is editing, but you can't fix what isn't there to start with.
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